Amanda Gorman '20, the first Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, is pictured in Harvard Yard at Harvard University. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
(GNB Desk): Amanda Gorman is the youngest inauguration poet in recent memory. The 22-year-old from Los Angeles will read a poem at President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20.
She joins a modern tradition of poets — including Maya Angelou, Richard Blanco and Elizabeth Alexander, among others — reading their verse for incoming Democratic presidents. The poem she’ll read at the inauguration is titled, “The Hill We Climb.”
The Biden inaugural committee contacted to Gorman late last month. She has known numerous public figures, including former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former first lady Michelle Obama. But she will be meeting the Bidens for the first time. The Bidens, apparently, have been aware of her: Gorman says to the media agencies that the inaugural officials told her she had been recommended by the incoming first lady, Jill Biden.
She is calling her inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb” while otherwise declining to preview any lines to the media. Gorman says, she was not given specific instructions on what to write but was encouraged to emphasize unity and hope over “denigrating anyone” or declaring “ding, dong, the witch is dead” over the departure of President Donald Trump.
Gorman has rare status as a poet, and has dreams of other ceremonies. She would love to read at the 2028 Olympics, scheduled to be held in Los Angeles, and in 2037 wouldn’t mind finding herself in an even more special position at the presidential inauguration — as the new chief executive.
In an interview with the PBS NewsHour before the event, Gorman read another poem of hers called “The Miracle of Morning.” It was written last spring, in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. The poem offers a pocket of hope: “While we might feel small, separate, and all alone,/ Our people have never been more closely tethered.”
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